When roses bloom in winter {a re-post}

I've been struggling with words these days ... can't find words to fill this space. They just don't come readily like before and I'm trying to be patient. I wanted desperately to write, here, after last week and all that happened in Connecticut. But I had to write it all down for myself, in ink and on my own paper pages instead. Those words will likely stay there. Because last week was all too close for any of us- and I had to do some private dealing, just me and my Jesus.

But the events marked me and they marked all of us. And those dear little faces on the cover of People magazine mingled and messed with my Christmas joy. I can't shake the thoughts of their mamas. I have struggled to stay out of the emotional weeds. Still, Christmas is here and I believe in the Incarnation now more than ever ... this God who became flesh, born to save us all from everything we can't bear.

Below is a re-post from one year ago and, oddly enough, I think it works for today.
Have a truly blessed Christmas, friends. I hope to be back soon.

I nearly complain when I walk out the front door a few mornings ago.

This weather is so very bizarre and it is difficult to feel Christmas-y when the temperature hovers at 65. I suppose I don't really mind. How can I mind bike riding without coats and street play as if it were spring? I know the cold will come soon enough-- it always does. Somewhere, right now, there is a chill in the air and it will move this way in time, follow those black birds that descend in flocks and tell of colder days to come.

I see it that morning, out of the corner of my eye ... that thorny vine that is wily and misshapen. I don't know how to trim a rose bush and so it just does it's own crazy thing. It is mid-December and for months it has been nothing but a brown, thorny eyesore. I would have snipped it away long ago if I had known where to find the sheers.

But this week it is blooming roses.

Red and pink ones and I find it mysterious. I snap a picture. The next morning I read over here about how Christmas can be hard and all "upside down." The women respond candid and brave. I cry as I read ... pray for women I don't even know, women who will be alone or sad or stretched this Christmas. And who hasn't known pain? Aching loss?

I read and Christmas feels a bit more sacred, more necessary. It is about more than peace and waiting and anticipating. It is about deep need.

Need for light when the lights seem to be out ... or are just beginning to flicker. Need for hope that answers the ache. Hope that dispels the dark.



Because there are people who are hurting at Christmas.

And I think on another mama that I do know. It is ten months now, home without her girl. This will be her first Christmas with an empty chair and she posts on Facebook, tells of the memories that keep taking her breath away. At the funeral last year, they said their goodbyes amidst a sea of pink flowers and pink balloons for a girl who was just six. Her and that sweet aroma of pink ... mingling and lightening the air.

Dispelling the heaviness of a goodbye.

Her mama weighs heavy on my mind.

A few short hours from here another family keeps vigil, with thousands of others who have come alongside. And a dear friend's friend is dying. He won't likely make it to Christmas and his beautiful, strong wife informed the masses late last night, bid friends to come. Come now.

Come say goodbye at Christmas.

I watch a community plea for prayer and I pray too. I have tried so hard to make this season about the waiting and the knowing that He is coming, the anticipation of this arrival. God with us. It has been peaceful around here, just as I had hoped but I wonder if, in my pursuit to flee the Christmas Craze, have I missed something?

Have I forgotten that He is hope and light, the One who causes light to shine in dark places.
And  didn't He come in the middle of the night?

And the weather has been strange and Christmas is coming in with the cold. I am thinking of mothers, lovers, and a little girl who will kiss her dad goodbye on Christmas. 

Today we walk through Trader Joe's and the aisles are filled with shoppers buying gingerbread coffee and cinnamon cheese. We pick up peppermint taffy and I see them there to the right. In a sea of red and green poinsettias ... a small tin of pink roses. My heart speeds up and I tell my girl to look. Look! And we know who they are for. We know where we have to go next.

Later we leave roses on a doorstep, come home to taffy, and dad is off work early. He plays Christmas music and dances with his girls in the kitchen. I can't catch my breath and I mark the moment in my memory before I step out of the room. Thankful. Heavy.

Because I am still thinking of roses and I need to get away for just a minute. I shuffle through more Christmas music, favorites that mark the season, and I hear it-- this old hymn.

I have never listened well to these words but my ears are tuned today. A flower bright .... when half spent was the night. A savior  foretold, to show God's love. A babe, whose sweetness so filled the air that kings and shepherds came to see. Dispelling darkness everywhere and lightening every load.

It is the eve of Christmas Eve and I am thinking on a rose. I am waiting for a light that shines in the dark ... for a hope that enters gladly into the night.


Come, Lord Jesus.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.


Isaiah 'twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;
Mary we behold it, the Virgin Mother kind.
To show God's love aright, she bore to us a Savior,
When half spent was the night.


The shepherds heard the story proclaimed by angels bright,
How Christ, the Lord of glory was born on earth this night.
To Bethlehem they sped and in the manger they found Him,
As angel heralds said.


This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.

Joy to the World

Merry Christmas to you, friends!!

Slowing for the gift ...

Wishing you peace today as the week begins new and brings us closer, closer still, to the unwrapping.

Wishing you eyes to see and ears to hear.

He is coming.



Wishing you a pace that is slow, a heart that is full, and a home that is ready to receive.

He is coming.

Wishing you moments to embrace the gift ... this God-sized gift that is is wrapped in humility and available for all. For all who will look with child eyes, touch with child hands, embrace with child faith.

And this long-awaited gift is worth the wait. It is precious, with none matching it in value or worth. It is sweet, its goodness never running out. This gift is timeless, unbreakable, and meets every need.

Wishing you fullness of joy, this week, as you anticipate Him-- the most perfect gift for this season.  

And every season that follows.

 

On roots and rhythm ...

It's advent around here, and during the month of December we do what we have always done.

Every year since I was four ... we start on Day 1 and we tell the story. And my mom created this rhythm in our home all those years ago. Now life just seems to ebb and flow with the seasons ... with me always on the lookout for what is coming around the bend. Again.

And I love this circular living, the knowing and the waiting. My girls wait with anticipation the way I waited when I was small, each morning waking up and looking to the day. What day is it? They want to know and I am thrilled. They are putting down new roots, grafting into mine and hers ... grafting into His.

And my mother was thirty-nine when she crafted the Jesse tree out of felt with the other West Point ladies. It was 1982 ... military moms banding together to create an advent tradition, weaving Truth into a tangible story for small minds.

I woke every morning of December to put that figure on the tree and my mind doesn't know advent without them. Without her all wrapped up in them ... telling me of Him. She taught me in quiet, simple ways how the small tales are really part of one large story. How the old weaves right into the new. How every word pointed to His coming. How scripture told He would come from the root of Jesse ...

All along, through those rhythmic years of Decembers, my mother was making Christmas more than just a day. She was making Christmas a story-- a life in the making-- with real heroes and reminders of our place in it all ... us, all unknowing and hero-needy.

So at Christmas time each year we begin at the beginning. We tell of Adam, Eve, Noah and the flood, Abraham and the promise, Samuel, David and a royal bloodline. We tell the story one piece at a time, starting with a miniature earth and that ol' apple.

We start with a serpent and we end with a Savior. We start with a promise and we end with a Person.

The Word making good on his word.

My mother is 66 now and her Jesse Tree, all its felt figures, shows signs of wear. And she said I could have it someday, when she is gone. But I don't like to think about that and I prefer it hanging on her wall in her home. Still, it has taken me years to create may own version and the felt characters just don't feel the same in my fingertips. I want the smell and the taste and the touch to stay the same and I have to remember that we are paving new ways. Same roots ... new rhythms.

I am thankful for roots.



And somewhere along the way, during these last years, I have grown to love this woman too. As a young mother and no longer a little girl, I need reminding again and again of this rhythmic living.  Always coming back to Christ, day after day, season after season ... the story always pointing to Him. She helps me to see.

And lately I find that I need this story now more than ever and I wonder if my mother, way back then, didn't need it too. I wonder if that Jesse Tree was more for her than for us ... creating her own space of grace and awe ... a space of remembering while a young family and four children swirled at her feet and swept through her kitchen. 

Looking back I know it was all by grace ... me picking up on the rhythms she created. Me breathing in the story that was so much bigger and substantial than I ever could have known. And how we invited Him into our living room, our life, all because she knew our need ... 

Because more than a Jesse Tree, did she know that we just needed Jesus? And I live now by these rhythms ... created by her, rooted in Him. This God among us.

It is December 14th and we are following the lead of my mother and we are following the lead of Ann (dearest Ann who quietly follows the lead of Christ). We are looking toward Him. And for the last few years now, we have joined up her words with my felt roots and I smile big each advent season, like I did when I was small ... the knowing that this is a good fit for us.

This new weaving into the old and the knowing that there is room for these roots to sprawl and plunge deeper still. Always pointing behind and ahead too ... each day a reminder of the One who came and the one who is coming still.

Christmas is coming ...

It's the first Sunday of Advent and it snuck up on me the way it always does. We sit together in church and we watch the first candle with its first flame. It is the first light of the season and it is time. 

Time to do this again ... tell this story as we revel in the wonder of it all. Then wait joyful ... watch it unfold before us and it just doesn't get old.

And we're not anti-Santa around here. Not afraid of him, don't wince at the mention of his name. We are just normal folks who grew up in American homes and how much do I love John Denver and the Muppets' Christmas (circa 1984)?! The season simply wouldn't be complete without Miss Piggy (and Animal) singing "Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat..." because some things just die hard (or never die at all) and well, when John Denver has been part of your entire Christmas life ...

So, we enjoy fun tradition like the next family but we don't indulge it too much, don't build up this pot- bellied man who squeezes down chimneys.

Because there is another man who comes. A man who came. A man who is here. And His story is epic and no amount of rosy cheeks and flying reindeer can top it. It is The Story of all stories, the story that began it all and the story that is playing out every day... right here and now.

So as we scramble a bit to catch up with the first candle that came right on the tail of  turkey, we are getting ready to dive in. We will watch and wait together as we share the story that trumps all other stories. 

It is His story and it is our story and it is your story too. Will you join us this season?
I will promise one thing and one thing only: it will be your best Christmas yet. And if you haven't been part of an epic story before? Well then, sweet friends, here is your chance.

John Piper says, "Past grace is glorified by intense and joyful gratitude. Future grace is glorified by intense and joyful confidence."

And so, 'tis the season to celebrate Grace that came down. Gratitude for what He has done. Confidence in what He will do. The God who was. The God who is to come. The Beginning and the End.

We are getting ready: eager, hopeful, grateful. And we would love for you to come along.

Come, Lord Jesus, as we wait in joyful hope ...